Specialist contractor Dunne Group has reported ground work on a new £200million residential and commercial complex in Edinburgh city centre is ahead of schedule.

Once completed in 2009, the AMA & Grosvenor project in the Fountainbridge area will be the biggest development of its kind in the city.

A new "urban village" is planned for the site, with public squares linking the upgraded and potentially expanded Union Canal with Fountainbridge and the West Approach Road.

The 32-hectare site will include residential, commercial and retail space with an underground car park for up to 650 vehicles, designed to free up space for gardens and pedestrian zones.

The 900,000 sq ft former McEwan's brewery site is being developed by Fountain North Ltd and a consortium including AMA (New Town) Ltd, Grosvenor and the Royal Bank of Scotland.

Edinburgh architects Oberlanders drew up plans to combine 160,000 sq ft of high quality office space with 650 new homes, retail outlets and a new public park.

Working on behalf of main contractor HBG, Dunne Group began bulk excavation works last August to make way for the east underground car park.

More than 30,000 cubic meters of material was transported off site before foundation work for the car park got under way in early October. Work on the reinforced concrete podium transfer decks - which will form the roof the car park - commenced four weeks ahead of schedule.

Dunne amalgamated the first two deck pours, resulting in one of the company's largest continuous concrete pours to date pumping approximately 600 cubic metres of concrete in under 10 hours.

The next phase of the project will see Dunne constructing four new concreteframe blocks, two of which will be above the post-tensioned podium slab on the east car park covering 2,700 square metres per floor and climbing to six levels.

East of these buildings will be two smaller structures, again climbing six floors and covering 600 square metres per floor between them.

Project manager Lee Lafferty said: "This fast, innovative and efficient approach to construction has now become synonymous with Dunne and we look forward with confidence to the next phase of this ambitious and innovative project."